Cold Bishop wrote:luridedith wrote:The Blood Of Dr Jekyll (Walerian Borowczyk, 1981)
Unless you didn't turn in a list and are just putting in your two-cents after the fact, I believe that this should be listed as a also-ran. Zedz?
Spot on, unless luridedith's list got lost in the radiator. I double checked my inbox and there's nothing there.
My top ten were:
The Terroriser
Sherman's March
Berlin Alexanderplatz
City of Pirates
Taipei Story
The Thin Blue Line
Street of Crocodiles
Heimat
l'Argent
Darkness Light Darkness
I expected the 80s list to be the one I had least sympathy with, since I pretty much retain no sentimental attachment for all the mainstream films I saw as a teen, but even though the upper echelons of the list are rather predictable (for a very long time it looked like the major surprise would be the previously unplaced
A nos amours finishing in the top ten, but that was not to be), there's only one film in the top twenty that I really hate.
So here's my curmudgeonly take-down of the top 10, as sort of promised.
Out top two are sponsored by
The Criterion Collection:
Fanny - actually I don't mind this, and it might have made my top 100, but surely Bergman benefited this round by having no viable competition from himself. This film was slow to rally, in and out of the top ten for the first half of the vote, but powering ahead in the last 24 hours. Lots of top-of-the-list or top three placings.
Ran - this was the last sentimental choice I expunged from my list. It was extremely important to my film education at the time, but I don't really have any wish to see it again at the moment, and the film I preserved in the number 50 slot on my list I'd walk a mile in stilettos to see again. A late starter in the voting, and it seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it choice.
The next section of the top ten is brought to you by
Empire magazine:
Blade Runner - great production design, but it's never seemed like that good a film to me otherwise. I've seen it three times in the different versions, and each version improves notably on what went before, but they've all been dramatically stodgy and uninvolving in my book. Voting for this was also quite polarised - lots of top 10 placings but missing from many lists.
Raging Bull - sort of ditto - an impressive filmmaking achievement, but it's always been a film I admire rather than love.
Blue Velvet - Odd that this only finished fifth, as it was probably the big concensus favourite. Haven't got the spreadsheet here to check, but I expect it appeared on more lists than any other film. Normally that's enough, but in the weird polarised 80s vote that didn't count for too much, and the large number of modest or minor placings (including my own) weren't enough to overcome the fanaticism for other titles.
The Shining - Ouch. Obviously I'm on a hiding to nothing, but does nobody else see this as a really,
really bad film? I moaned about it before and I just can't see it any other way, but I've generally got a low tolerance for Kubrick's glossy, fussy, empty stylisations.
Do the Right Thing - OK, I'm with you on this one. These stylisations are fine by me, and they're anything but empty.
Fitzcarraldo - I'm not going to begrudge Herzog a place on any list. Oh, very well, yes I am. The strong performance of this really surprised me, since it's always seemed a decidedly 'third tier' Herzog film, much more notable for the story of its making than for what ended up on screen. And, as a consequence, I've always felt that
Burden of Dreams was its effortless superior. For the record, my idea of 'first tier' is
Signs of Life,
Aguirre,
Land of Silence and Darkness,
Every Man for Himself. . .,
La Sourfriere,
Lessons in Darkness with most of the other 70s features and lots of documentaries (
Woodcarver Steiner,
Wings of Hope,
Grizzly Man) constituting the second tier.
Come and See - this must count as the big success of the 'swapsies' / recommendations process. I remember it as powerful enough, but bombastic and one-note, but I haven't seen it for a very long time.
The Decalogue - I put this on my list and have fond memories of it, but haven't viewed it since the 80s, which might be negligent of me. For me, Kieslowski went into decline after this (or after the polish section of
Veronique, maybe). Nicely appropriate placing on the list, too!
(As for not retaining any sentimental attachment to the Hollywood films of my youth, I will make an exception for
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and salute those who included it.)